McLean’s Pub Call Of The Wilde: A SOTU Moment

March 31, 2018

By Brian Wilde

Five games left in the regular season for the Montreal Canadiens with the pride of the result having an interesting battle for fans with the desire to draft higher. The ultimate scenario is a well played game with a loss in the last minute. It’s even a bonus when it is the youth of the team that shines and shows a brighter future for Habs fans than the present that they endured this season. On that front, it was a bit disappointing for many that Mike Reilly was left out of the line-up for David Schlemko to return against the Stanley Cup champion Penguins. C’est la vie as they say. To the horses….

Wilde Horses

The last quarter of the season has had the same horses night after night. Alex Galchenyuk with a sweet pass to Jonathan Drouin for a goal. Galchenyuk continues to be the revelation of the last quarter of the season. He’s been strong and working into a completely different territory as a player under Julien. He’s learning so much this season and I couldn’t be more pleased for him. He’s the player that the Habs were hoping for. He’s maturing right before our eyes, but no one is really noticing because there is so much negativity and indifference.

Same story for Jonathan Drouin who I am totally on board now is a winger and would be a terrific winger with some center support on this team, but I digress. Drouin is playing his best hockey of the year and suddenly his numbers, though they are not what was hoped, are not so bad. Take a look at Ryan Johansen’s numbers on Hockey DB. Now look at Drouin’s. Now look at how many goals the Predators have scored this year. Now look how many the Habs have scored. Johansen is hailed as this great center this season leading the charge on the best team in the league. Drouin is looked as a total bust on a team that has also busted this season completely. It’s clearly not so obvious is it? What I am saying is put Drouin in a comfortable position on the wing, put a center who he clicks with on his line, put a winger on the other side who can distribute, put him on a better team overall, and watch him surpass the numbers of Johansen. I would take Drouin over Johansen for talent. Yes, I would. Opportunity meets talent is vital because it’s not just talent that counts. Talent needs a chance or it is wasted. I give Drouin a big chance to improve his points next season by 15 to 20. If he finishes with 45 this year, I will give you 60 to 65 next season, if they put some opportunity in front of him. I mean did you see that shot for his goal? He can weave too as you know.

Brendan Gallagher blocking shots in game 78 of a lost season. This kid is amazing. His first 30 goal season. He’s working his ass off like the cup is on the line.

Paul Byron. Cut from the same cloth as Gallagher. I really think the wingers on the Habs are way better than most pundits do. I think they can be very strong. I don’t think this team needs an upgrade at wing when Drouin is there too. Drouin and Galchenyuk as first line wingers. Gallagher and Lehkonen as second line wingers. Byron and Scherbak as third line wingers. Hudon and Deslauriers as fourth line wingers. I have no trouble with the Habs wingers. Does anyone have any trouble with that group of wingers? There are a lot of goals in those wingers. However, for speed to shine, for these wingers to shine, it and they need to be fed early passes from offensively creative defenders and also from intelligent playmaking centers. Winger is a position that has a hard time creating something out of nothing. Show me a winger with amazing numbers and 9 times out of 10 I will show you a great center, or a great defender who freed him. Centers and defenders are creators in this modern NHL, while the wingers respond to that creation. Improve the middle and the transition on D and watch the wingers be even better. The Habs don’t need to worry about the wing to not be 27th in a 31 team league. To the goats to show you what they do need to worry about….

Wilde Goats

Watching Karl Alzner kill a penalty is so painful. He doesn’t block the passing lanes. He doesn’t take the player on. He just basically stands there on the left side and watches the world go by. The Habs have the worst penalty kill in the league and he is the one big constant this season. He’s always there….. sucking. I’m sorry, but this is ridiculous. One of the real shames of this entire hockey world is smart people are supposed act stupid so the general manager doesn’t look bad. This is how it goes in the hockey world and I know this to be true as I have been told it and I have seen it many times. The GM makes a lousy decision and the world can see it is a lousy decision but he thinks he can hide it from everyone, so he tells his coach to keep using his lousy decision. The coach isn’t allowed to bench his lousy decision. He can’t put his lousy decision in the press box either. Everyone just goes along pretending that the lousy decision is just fine. Usually, the lousy decision gets exposed when the GM has his back against the wall in a different way. It goes like this…. there is a vital game, perhaps a game seven of the playoffs, and the GM really needs a win, and the coach says, boy it really would be great if we didn’t have to dress and play your lousy decision. The GM finally agrees because he needs the win even more than protection from the fall out of exposure of his lousy decision. I went on a long time there, but all of this to say…. Alzner is done. He is done on the penalty kill. He is done on the 5 on 5. He is done when the team is leading. He is done when the team is trailing. He is done defending the rush. He is done defending the cycle. Four more years of that? Really? Have some character yourself Marc since you love it so much and do the right thing and admit your error.

And speaking of a terrible penalty kill, can we finally get it together and fire most of these assistants? Jean Jacques Daigneault should have been fired before he was hired. He should have been fired before the Fox glowing puck? He should have been fired before Seattle named their first NHL team the Metropolitans. He should have been fired before he was a twinkle in his mother and father’s eyes. When has anything he has done actually been a stand out?

And speaking of firing coaches, why is Sylvain Lefebvre? Why is one playoff spot in six years okay? Why is not developing draft picks acceptable? You see how Claude Julien works with players to improve them and keep them on course and find their better game? You see how Galchenyuk is turning into a better player? Yeah, me too. Who seems to be developing in deeper ways under Lefevbre? JDLR is developing right now. But under who? Lefebvre? Of course not. Under Julien. Get this guy Lefebvre gone already. If there are no penalties to be paid for being terrible, then what’s the point of trying to be good. Marc Bergevin is going to have to stop making it easy for others to do lousy work. Fire the entire coaching staff at both places except Julien and Waite. Yep. Why? Well, it’s not as if the new people in both organizations can do worse than this. Both organizations are basically rock bottom.

And continuing in the difficult decisions department beside Alzner, Marc Bergevin should have the guts to also admit that the game is faster now and Jordie Benn is not keeping up; nor is David Schlemko. They’re not there. Sorry. The Habs have the makings of a good D but they didn’t play in this one. Here are the six D for next season and it’s an infinitely better D than this year’s D: Weber, Mete, Petry, Juulsen, Reilly, and the sixth member will be who they can get with the Pacioretty return, or the top five pick return or the 15 million dollars available return. That leaves Alzner, Benn, and Schlemko as your 7, 8, and 9. I will take instead Dobson, or Hughes, or Bouchard or Carlson, or Dahlin, or most anyone on the trade market over these guys as the six D. Because here’s the thing…. if you go into next October with those three on your blue line still, why is it that you think with the same personnel you’re going to be much better than 27th again?

I wrote a section on Twitter about the Habs middle. Danault and JDLR are 3C, so if you want to argue that they are 2C then that’s fine for you, but if they are 2C, then they are 2C on a bad to average hockey club. For me, when the Habs are talented and in the second round of the playoffs, Danault and JDLR are the three and the four while the one and the two are far better players than they are now on this dysfunctionally created team. I see the Habs making a play for Tavares or Stastny or both in hopes of landing one of the two. I don’t love either of these deals to be honest because I think they would have to overpay for Tavares and Stastny is getting old, but what are the options? Lousy again. This isn’t easy option time for the GM. No one is offering him Borgstrom or Necas or Thomas for an aging and pending UFA Max Pacioretty. You have options but they aren’t great. That’s the corner that you have painted yourself in. The alternative, and if I could sell my owner on it, this would be the option I would take. I would tank this thing another year or two and not make a play for either of these centers. I wouldn’t give Stastny 4 or 5 years and I wouldn’t give Tavares 13 to 15 million. I would wait for Ryan Poehling one more year, and stay the course. And yes, I know the course is lousy, but bad choices that follow bad choices make for longer misery. Waiting patiently isn’t what is going to happen here though. Marc Bergevin is at the save his job portion of the always repeated always predictable hockey exercise. He has to turn this around now for self preservation. He will spend a ton to get a center. If the giant offer for Tavares lines up with John’s free will, then he will be here next year. If Tavares’ free will has him in another city, then the giant offer will be made to Paul Stastny. Anything for Bergevin to make sure he finally gets a center, and then we will see what Paul’s free will is for next season. Know this though…. the offers will be made. Right or wrong to do it, the offers will be made. They’re always made in the save the job phase of the cycle.

Wilde Cards

Ryan Poehling as we reported earlier at Recrutes has made it official that he will return for a next season at Saint Cloud State. The attention now turns to Jimmy Schuldt who the Habs have had many conversations with and are trying to interest in Montreal. Schuldt was the top defender on the top team in college hockey. He is a Hobey Baker nominee. He is a defenceman and he would be a valuable addition to the Habs in the same vein as Will Butcher in New Jersey after he won the Hobey Baker for Denver.

Cayden Primeau who was a 7th round choice of the Habs last season has been named a finalist of the Mike Richter award as the best goalie in college hockey. He is not likely to win this in his freshman year, but his rise to excellence is meteoric.

About Brian Wilde

Brian Wilde has worked in hockey since he was 20. He was the rink side host for the Edmonton Oilers at CTV and Ottawa Senators for Sportsnet. He was also lead reporter on the Montreal Canadiens for 17 years at CTV Montreal.

Reader Interactions

Unfortunately, buying out Alzner this summer would be disastrous for the salary cap (8 years of dead money!) and unlikely. So he is back. HOPEFULLY, as a 6th D and nothing more. If next year is another debacle, you have 2 options:

Summer 2019 buyout, the dead money that brings is according to cap friendly:

Year 1: $1,069,444
Year 2: 4,194,444 (Yikes)
Year 3: $2,194,444
Year 4: $1,069,444
Year 5: $1,069,444
Year 6: $1,069,444

OR you send him to Laval for 2019-20 and bite the bullet. And then what happens in summer 2020? The Seattle expansion draft. You pay Seattle to take him on if you have a dire need for cap space. They may not need cap space though. If they don’t, it’s a 2020 buyout. Or you go to Alzner and make it clear he is going to be ”Robidas’d” and he can rot on LTIR for the final years of his contract if he wants to collect the full $.

Benn and Schlemko can be waived and sent to Laval next October if there are no takers on the trade market. Benn’s cap hit comes almost entirely off the cap (there would be 75 K of dead money, which is peanuts) if you send him to Laval. When it comes to Schlemko, you get stuck with a dead cap hit of 1.075 M. Nothing outrageous. I’d rather waste 1.075 M of cap to NOT have him on the team than rostering him and feeling the need to play him.

Galchenyuk-tavares-drouin oh ya.its said the cap should be 80 mill next ssn. Plenty of room to over pay tavares.
67 for a 1d with weber.
Ohhh imagine dahlin if we get him too…but reality sets in and we have the same old shleps.

Do you get to ask MB a question at this year’s post season press conference? If so, you should definitely ask him about his defence and why those guys are still in our line-up… pint out/state exactly what you wrote in this call of the Wilde. You make strong points that are very well backed up… it’s time someone puts him on the spot a little more…

I’m so with you Brian. Trade Pacioretty for futures (1st + prospect). Draft the BPA in 2018 draft. Don’t sign Tavares or Statsny. Tank another year. Let Julien teach and mentor the kids. And hope like hell they can draft Jack Hughes in 2019. and if they can’t draft Hughes, doesn’t matter. Collect as many picks as they can by trading aging players, draft BPAs all the way down the line. Then repeat and repeat until the team looks like the Jets.

Excellent commentary there Brian. I can never seem to write like that as my passion and temper take over and I seem to get carried away and lose my way.
Reading your piece it almost feels like you can see Bergy in “Hockey Court” as the Crown reads the prepared statement of the short comings, mistakes, omissions caused by a blinding ego and total misunderstanding of how the game is being played today. The types of players needed to succeed and then the stark realization that we are so far from the truth. We have been travelling the wrong way for 6 yrs now under this failed administration. Bergy refuses to use any degree of Common Sense. Instead he dismisses the right way to proceed over and over again and instead spends more time trying to cover up the harm he has infected this organization with. He reinforces the “French First” for Head Coaches and senior management with his owner. He uses it to protect the wrong decisions he has made. Just how many French Coaches are there out there with NHL experience. So hiring Therrien and JJ Dageneault made good sense to him. I mean what could Larry Robinson done to help this organization? There is no Accountability from the Coaching Dept, from Bergevin, from Molson. Truly, what cards is Lefebvre holding on Bergy to keep his job. I mean he only took on two 1st Round Defensemen and instead of making them ready for the NHL he turned them into fighters!! Why?? Both are long gone now but as an organization to grow you cannot toss away 1st Rounders like they mean nothing. Is Mike McCaron the next to go that way? Entirely possible.
The future…..oh yeah the quick turnaround to be engineered by Bergy this summer?? Yes, pouring all those savings away once again. Yes, I can see a bunch of those 2nd Rounders being moved as the draft approaches for aged players that are on a steep downward plane as an effective hockey player or adding some younger player because he’s from Quebec, and once scored 4 goals in a Road Hockey game is sure to be another saviour for us as he stands at centre ice. All 5’6″, 154lbs of him soaking wet. Yep these are the kinds of players that attract to Bergy. You just have to know that with all honesty in your heart JT will not sign here when he can go to the Sharks who have even more money than us. Let’s see do I want snow & cold or do I want sun, sand and the whole Pacific Ocean calling him.
But what is the famous back up plan? The true one that is going to turn this team around by adding more players like: Alzner, Benn, Schlemko and clones of Logan Shaw and all the other 4th liner offensively challenged players that are soon to come this way………
When will Geoff Molson recover from the serious head injury that has totally impaired his judgement as the Team President. How can he sit there and be comfortable with any of this? That truly is a worthy question to be asked of him.

Schlemko’s deal goes two more years and Alzner four, right? Benn is how many? He can’t buy them all out, and they will be nearly impossible to trade. But I agree they are not useful to the Canadiens. I agree about changing the coaching staff up too, with the possible exception of Muller.

MB said the D was better than last year. Molson says MB is a great evaluator of talent When you see this kind of rubbish you know that the habs NEED a prez of hockey ops. This great evaluator of talent sure has done well in the draft hasn’t he. How many 1st round picks do the Habs have in their line up?

Boqvist should be mentioned. Forget tavares and Stasny. Tavares would ruin the salary structure for the next 10 yrs IF you plan to sign him and keep price and Weber. Stasny is too old for our teams needs and frankly, he’s just ok. I may end up being wrong but I think Veleno is going to surprise a lot of people as a pro. I think habs will sign ducharme to coach Laval. Ducharme was veleno’s coach this last yr and really started honing his game. If habs can draft a top 4 and then use their abundance of 2nd rounders to then also get Veleno, I think the habs will be good with poehling Veleno danault in a few yrs time. That would be my plan. Forget tavares and Stasny. And while we would need a few yrs for poehling and veleno to mature, we would be drafting high because we would still be losing for a few yrs. I would further trade price and Weber during this period to insure we tank and get as much back as possible while we also wait for Lindgren primeau mcniven and Hawkey to mature. Let Niemi take the shelling for the next 2 yrs. who cares. As long as they don’t set Lindgren up to fail by making him #1 during this period. Let him back up Niemi and keep learning.

Sorry but the future is now for this GM, coach, Price and Weber….Tavares is a dynamic player that will make this team infinitely better right away.
And just to add we have the pieces to make the D much better….

Agree with the coaches there should be mass firings on both levels…agree with the defense, Benn out…Schlemko out…and as much as I would love to ditch Alzner I think he gets another chance but I agree his play this year has been atrocious, looks like he has never played D in his life!!!

I think the Habs will go hard on Tavares and I believe they have as good a chance as anybody 50/50…If the Habs stay in the top 3/4 in the draft they will use the pick to get a player that has a good chance of becoming a very good NHL player…If the Habs fall out of the top 5 I think there is a possibility of shopping the pick/players in a blockbuster type trade to get the much needed #1 centre and some defensive help.

I think MB`s will be busy fielding calls on Gallagher and as much as I like Gallagher I can see him going if the right piece or pieces are presented.
This off season starting with the draft lottery will be an exciting time with lots to look forward too…

The biggest concern I have is Carey Price….not sure what the hell is going on with him but lets hope he gets his shit together and bounces back.

This will be MB`s last chance to put together a team that can compete…he has the money…he has the pieces to move and he is going to have a very good pick in the draft….plenty of ammunition to change the dynamic of this team in a hurry and I think he knows this is his last chance and will be very aggressive.

You have painted a harsh reality, but you are not wrong. It is obvious to the diehard and casual fans. So…..is it also obvious to Bergevin ? Molson ?
and that is the core of our problem, and unless Bergy has a miraculous
revelation, nothing good will happen. I hope so but i am not optimistic.
Two centers, 2 good defensemen, and a resurgent Carey Price and we will be competitive. Big ifs given who is steering the ship.

Hi Brian,
Danault & JDLR are indeed number 3 and 4 centers. To think otherwise is to get a strange Maple Leafs’ flu that attempts to over value their players. I think Bergevin has been in his fox hole from the very beginning . All his wagons and his job were placed around the talent of one man–Price. Every knowledgeable hockey expert stated that this type of team design was very precarious. It was a design where the young players were frozen into a stagnant defensive posture and could not find their offensive game under threat of benching. Therrien was the big freeze who helped Bergevin disguise the major faults of the team. It was a team constructed to make the playoffs. It was a team that would never have won the Stanley Cup even in its best days. It was a team that could take the heat off the general manager and the coach. It was a team that was constructed to save Bergevin’s job. In microcosm the Canadiens defence this year seemed to reflect Bergevin’s desperation. It is his style to play safe and never gambit as a very creative mind in any business learns to do. The great hockey players are great because in many ways they are very talented and unpredictable. Alzner is not talented or unpredictable and he seems to play like Bergevin thinks—safe–sound & lost. I would like Bergevin to respond to this article that you wrote . If it ” is all on him” then that means answers to validate questions cannot be ignored.

Nice to see you come around to our 2 or 3 year old point of view, Brian. I know, as a journalist, that you can’t make make immediate judgments, like we fans can. A good analysis of the structure revealed that is was seriously flawed, even if the results didn’t show it yet. The last 3 years have gone a long way to exposing the rot. The entire organization, excepting perhaps Waite, Timmins and Julien needs to be remade. All those very valid points you made are correct, but they are symptoms. The cause is at the top and since you can’t fire Geoff Molson, you have to go with the next guy below.

I’m glad to see you’re highlighting a point that may be escaping many people, that Alex Galchenyuk has made huge improvements to his game. I suspect, as you allude to, that Claude Julien has played a role in that improvement. And while he has said in the past that AG is not a centre, one wonders if that is truly his opinion or is he simply defending his boss again, a la Alzner. Galchenyuk has displayed so many examples (offensively at least) of being a true centre. If his linemates had finished off just a few more of the great set-ups he’s made, he’d have 10 more points this season.

The season’s coming to an end , so thanks for persevering and thanks for at least trying to make the same old, same old a bit different each game.